The Cursed Staff
by Victoria Sangrecordia
Summary: HBPspoilers abound. Longsuppressed memories are brought back to the surface as a DADA teacher who looks as fragile as a china doll and is anything but helps in the hunt for one of the last remaining Horcruxes. SSOC, Gen SSHP NO SLASH!
1. Of Men and Memories

_ A clock chimed 30 minutes past midnight; however, for two students in a dungeon-level classroom--a pallid, scrawny Slytherin boy and an athletic, Japanese Ravenclaw girl-- this fact seemed to escape notice. The girl pursed her lips in concentration as she worked over her cauldron. "Damn," she muttered. _

_ The boy, who had been examining a chart hanging on a rear wall with a bored expression, stalked over to her with an exasperated air of annoyance. "Let's see it, what've you done wrong..." She tried futilely to block him from looking into the cauldron, but he forced a ladle into it and dipped out a disgusting-looking substance. His voice dripping with contempt, he drawled, "Beige, Vance. Beige. It's a smashing success—if you were brewing day-old porridge. How many times do I have to tell you that it's 3 stirs clockwise? You're supposed to be making a potion, not putty!" The glob in the ladle flopped back into the cauldron with a hollow, defeated splash._

_ "Well, I'm trying! First of all, the book says TWO, CLOCKWISE, secondly, I've told you time and again to call me Akiko, and thirdly, I get the theory; it's just the damned exceptions and bloody guesswork that get me," the girl retorted, with a considerable bit of rage in her voice as she viciously stabbed a line in the book with her fingertip._

_ Their eyes narrowed, and they scowled at one another for a few moments, with the air of two equally headstrong tigers about to engage in a fight, before he snapped, "Let me see that," and snatched the book from her. A strand of lank, oily hair fell across his long nose, and he flipped it out of the way irritably. Suddenly, his superior attitude seemed to deflate. "'M'sorry, Akiko. You were right. The book does say two," he muttered, almost inaudibly. Then he added, more vociferously as though determined to assert his correctness, "But three works better." He pulled out a quill and scribbled over the offending line, then shoved the book back at her. "You can thin that" he gestured disdainfully to the cauldron's contents "out with essence of rue. It'll be substandard quality, but that'll be nothing new." _

_ "Whatever works," Akiko responded, reddening slightly. The room was awkwardly silent as she added the essence of rue, her lips pursed. After half a minute's stirring she asked, in an impish—but nonetheless accurate—mimicry of the boy's natural tone of voice, "Other than the distinct displeasure of tutoring an utter imbecile like me, how's life with you?"_

_ "I'm alive, that's all I can say for it," he muttered, his sallow complexion taking on the faintest hue of pink. "It'd be much better if you could keep your mouth shut for more than two moments," he added sharply, almost involuntarily, before biting his tongue. If he could only learn to keep his snarky comments to himself for the same duration, perhaps his own life would be significantly easier._

_Akiko grinned roguishly. "You know I love the sound of my own voice too much for that to be possible," she replied smoothly and evenly as she continued to stir the cauldron. Her eyes widened and she threw herself up on tip-toes in a graceful releve to take a better look, a stray lock of shiny black hair flipping into her face. "It's thinning! YES!" she cried in triumph, pumping a fist in the air. _

_"Keep putting in effort, Vance. Eventually you might aspire to the level of 'mediocre,'" he drawled in languid bemusement; cursing himself inwardly for his sharp tongue. After an eternal pause of building up courage, the boy added, "You flew well -- in the match yesterday, by the way."_

_ The girl looked up from her work, clearly startled. "You... came to my Quidditch match? But... Slytherin wasn't..." If she'd wanted to finish her sentence, she couldn't have. With all the subtlety of a blitzkrieg attack, the boy had leaned over and snogged her on the lips. Her eyes snapped shut in surprise; her hands flew up, startled, and accidentally tipped over a glass flagon. What seemed like hours later, it rolled to the ground and shattered, and the boy, shocked, broke off the kiss, turned away from her, and studied the flagstones. The girl's eyes opened wide, and she blinked, owlishly. "What...was that?" she asked, when she'd regained her breath._

_ The words came tumbling rapidly from the boy's mouth. "I'm sorry. It'll never happen again, I promise; please, don't mention this again..." He turned and fled from the room into the corridors. When he felt he'd put a sufficient distance between himself and the girl, he leaned a shoulder against the wall, dully thudding the side of his head against the damp stones over and over. He was so stupid, such a colossal fool, just like his father had told him time and again...and Potter and Black and their friends would mock him incessantly for it once they found out, as they inevitably would. Merlin's beard, why Akiko Vance? She was about as hopelessly unattainable as Lily..._

_ "Don't do that," a soft voice interrupted his thoughts. He could barely stand to glance at her. _

_ "I don't need your pity, Vance," he snarled to the wall, hot-faced. "Look, I know I'm a git, alright, and that I've not got a chance. So just leave me alone and we'll forget..." He felt soft fingers gently touch his cheek and turn his head. _

_"Severus?" she interrupted him, with the mildest hint of exasperation as she leaned toward him, her dark almond eyes twinkling. "Shut it." She pressed her lips against his, forcing him to comply with her order. Something on the order of a minor explosion began rocketing about inside his midsection..._

At half-past midnight, in his private study at Spinner's End, former Hogwarts Professor Severus Snape emerged from his Pensieve.

.Snape sat forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his desk, and forced the heels of his palms into his eyes as far as he could, kneading them with abrasive fervor as he lost himself in reflection. Why, after almost 18 years, were his mind and memories settling repeatedly on Akiko Vance? The silvery-white glow issuing from his desk poured into all the hollows of his face, making him look rather terrifying to the observer. He emerged from behind his hands and glared at the Pensieve apprehensively, harboring the briefest of suspicions that the etched stone bowl was conspiring to cause him grief. He'd pay for his moments of reverie with the Dark Lord the next day... after all his years of Occlumency, memories of his only happiness were the sole thing he was incapable of concealing.

She was dead; he knew that, he'd killed her himself, an action that had ripped his heart from his body and left him with a range of emotions encompassing only contempt, hatred, and rage. Yet, in the four years that he had loved her, he'd been the happiest that ever he had been in his lifetime. Daydreams of those days brought him the odd errant smile...once the school had found out that she was involved with him, there had been a renewed interest in jinxing him within an inch of his life, led by James Potter, who never stopped suspecting that he had slipped the girl a love potion. He didn't care. They could have hexed him from head to toe and it would all have been worth it.

"Well...as long as I'm going to catch it, might as well allow myself another," he thought to himself resignedly, and bent forward, his hooked nose descending closer and closer to the surface of the dancing, liquid-white light, until he somersaulted into another memory.

_ He and Akiko were wandering down a darkened corridor at Hogwarts, Kiko bounding and skipping ahead in her characteristic, exuberant way; he slinking along, warily. Judging by height, he had to have been a sixth year. His younger self whispered, "Muffliato" and slid his wand back into his bag. "We shouldn't have done this, Akiko..." he complained. _

_ "Course we should've. Besides, Slughorn likes both you AND me, so we're fine," Akiko replied. "C'mon, you've gotta skive off at LEAST once before you graduate. And it's potions, so it's not like you need it. I've learned loads more from you than from Sluggy anyway..."_

_ "Well aren't you just cherry blossoms and happiness today," he drawled, with a mordant shade in his voice. _Snape reckoned to himself that he must have been about sixteen, just past the holidays when—he recalled with a cringe—his father had excoriated him daily for growing his hair into a ponytail.

_ "Ever so," Akiko responded distractedly, searching the corridor wall with her eyes for something._

_His younger self shivered, and asked, "Where're we going, anyway?"_

_ "We're alllllmost there, I can feel it," Akiko murmured, "Sirius told me it should be riiight about..."_

_ The boy cringed a little. "Kiko, it makes me nervous when they're around you all the time. I don't like it." _

_ "I know you don't, Sev, but if I did everything you told me to, I wouldn't be your girlfriend, would I?" the girl responded cheekily. "No. I'd be your house elf."_

Outside the study at Spinner's End, Peter Pettigrew was sitting on the stairs, stewing in an intensely private fury. Snape had gotten the best of everything he'd ever wanted: better N.E.W.T. scores in all his subjects, better position in the Dark Lord's hierarchy, and, most nettlesome and unforgivable of all, the girl whose favor he'd coveted since the age of 13. Exotic where he was bland, outgoing where he was shy, skilled on the Quidditch pitch where he was hopeless, Akiko Irene Vance hadn't turned the heads of many at Hogwarts. Oftentimes outstripped in attractiveness and skill beside her fast friend, Lily Evans,Akiko was kindly, sunny in disposition, and generally well-liked, but not the sort of girl that boys tended to take to the Astronomy Tower.

The Marauders had adopted her as a sort of mascot before they ever arrived at Hogwarts; a lot of other first-year girls had occupied a big compartment together, but she and a pretty, red-haired girl had joined a forlorn-looking Remus Lupin in a compartment, a compartment which he'd been drawn toward joining and which was later crashed by a pair of show-offs, James Potter and Sirius Black. The merry, outgoing girl had prattled with both Lily and the boys incessantly. Well, not _with them_ so much as _at them_ at first, but eventually they grew to be fond of the "Japanese chatterbox," as Lupin had called her. When she alone, of the six of them in the compartment, was sorted into Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor, she'd looked disappointed, but accepted it nonetheless and continued to remain a fast friend of theirs. James and Sirius came to regard her as a little sister, and when Pettigrew had, late one night in third year, admitted that he fancied her, Prongs, Padfoot, and Moony had made it their mission to see to it that no one else had a chance, by relentlessly sharing her company almost around the clock, a fact that worked to James's advantage in the long run.

_No one else, that is, except Snivellus_, Pettigrew recalled, his lips curling into a rueful sneer. They all knew the stringy, unattractive Slytherin really wanted to be with Lily, but if he couldn't have her, or if his Blood prejudices wouldn't permit him to, why not settle for her best friend, whose Blood status was completely unknown? Peter remembered how the girl used to bedevil Snape in the corridors by calling, "Hullo, Severus!" cheerily at the very top of her prodigious lungs every time she saw him, which never failed to cause him to cringe and turn a fiery crimson; he wryly recalled how Akiko would mutter, under her breath to whomever she was with at the time, about what a standoffish little git he was, asserting with a gleeful snicker, "He _hates_ me."

But Snape got his revenge, during O.W.L. year, when he tutored Akiko in Potions and began slipping her Amortentia. Soon the pair of them were sickeningly inseparable; the day-bright Quidditch player and Prefect found the uninvolved boy's dark, taciturn , night-like silence to be the ideal audience for her animated prattling in the back of Potions classes. Pettigrew crushed a splinter in his metallic hand absently, reducing it to fine dust with suppressed anger at the recollections. Just as rapidly as the splinter had fallen victim to his silver fingers, the Marauders' loyalty to Akiko had outweighed their interest in making Snape's life a nightmare at every available chance. True enough, in Akiko's (and pursuantly, Lily's) absence, their rivalry escalated to all-out, full-scale war, but the moment that either of the girls showed up, wands disappeared and hasty excuses were made. Lupin had tried, for a brief stint, to head off Lily or Akiko whenever they approached such altercations, but the girls rapidly learned to sidestep him in the corridors. Eventually, Snape and Potter had realized it was in their mutual best interest to leave one another alone, and reluctantly reached an uneasy armistice. He remembered the day the truce had been reached:

_ Akiko and Lily had come sprinting up to the lakeside, Prefect badges bouncing awkwardly on their chests, in a whirlwind of black, bronze, blue, red, and gold. Their book-filled bags thudded to the ground as they discarded them, still running, and whisked out their wands._

_ "You tossers; you promised!" Akiko spat venomously at Sirius and Peter as she tore past the tree against which Sirius was leaning nonchalantly and under which Peter was watching, in his perpetual role as the cheering section, having only just hidden his wand behind his back._

_ "You know, Wormtail, if I didn't know better I'd say she was mildly peeved with us," Sirius drawled. "And I can't imagine why." Just then, Lupin came running up, and skidded to a halt, bending forward with his hands on his knees._

_ "I...I tried to head them off..." he panted to Sirius as Lily and Akiko leapt between Potter and Snape. "But I couldn't..."_

_ "We'd had that bit out on our own," Sirius said dismissively, still watching the two black-haired boys trying to get around the girls standing between them, now hurling insults instead of hexes. _

_ "Sod off, Evans! Would you two get out of the way?" James called in flippant irritation, without taking his eyes off Snape._

_ "If you don't STOP this... contemptible behavior, I'll—I'll have points from Gryffindor," Akiko threatened in a trembling tone of voice, her lower lip quivering._

_ "Crib that line from McGonagall, Kiko?" Severus asked her derisively as he nursed a prolifically bleeding cut on his right bicep._

_ Lily whipped around to look at the stringy boy, adding, "And I'LL have points from Slytherin."_

_ "You wouldn't dare," Snape barked, scandalized. Lily crossed her arms and favored him with a truculent glower, her green eyes narrowing to slits. He raised an eyebrow, and admitted reluctantly, "All right, perhaps you would, then."_

_ "You'd never let her have points from your own HOUSE, Evans," James Potter exclaimed indignantly._

_ "If it'd teach you a lesson about harassing each other senseless, I would double it," Lily retorted. James Potter cast one last glare at Snape, then finally lowered his wand. Severus did the same, and both boys stowed them in their bags, grumbling._

While Prongs benefited from this arrangement, however, Wormtail failed to see how that situation held any advantage for him. James got Lily, Snape got Akiko, and he got the occasional condescending pat on the head. He longed for the power to right this imbalance of justice, longed so much for it that he couldn't refuse Dolohov and Rosier's offer of power beyond his wildest dreams if he became an informant in the ranks of the Dark Lord. Peter snorted contemptuously. If lurking outside Severus Snape's library in this god-forsaken Muggle town was their idea of power beyond his wildest dreams, clearly someone's dreams were lacking in scope and imagination. And now, here was Snape, gloating over the memories of the woman that Peter knew should have been his. He was sickened.

Suddenly, there was a brighter flash: Snape had disappeared into the Pensieve again. Peter had been awaiting the chance to lock it back in the cupboard while Snape was still in it for quite a while. Telling the Dark Lord what one of his top—and most unreadable—advisors was doing would, perhaps, buy Pettigrew greater favor, or even—he grinned with delight at the prospect—bring down Snape. He pushed open the hidden door and crept out into the library, a hidden expression of glee on his face. His hands had just rested on the edges of the bowl when suddenly, a deafening _bang_ echoed through the room, throwing the chubby, bald man to the ground. When he rolled over and looked up, he saw Severus Snape towering over him, a dangerous glower on his face. "I don't recall asking you into my study, _Wormtail_;" he snapped angrily, his wand raised.

"I-I-didn't...realize...I was... clearing up..."

"You may have languished in desuetude as a house pet for thirteen years, but don't assault my intelligence," Snape hissed silkily. "Even the thickest of wizards can tell when a Pensieve is occupied." A bright yellow spray of a curse flew at Pettigrew, and he scrambled up, barely dodging it, and bolted for the stairs, followed closely by a hail of curses that he knew Snape was merely permitting to miss him in order to propel him from the room. _You'll regret not hitting me with a few of those, Snape,_ Pettigrew thought angrily.


	2. Of Barristers and Bat Bogeys

_**A/N**: A brief note on Japanese: The -ko suffix designates a female child's name. Akiko (ah-KEE-koh) means "girl-child of the autumn"; Kiko, therefore, is merely a truncation and not to be confused with Keiko (KAY-ko), meaning "loving daughter". Sakura (sa-KOO-rah) means "cherry blossom", and in the Shinto pantheon, Uzume (oo-ZOO-may) was the goddess of happiness and joy, a figure somewhere between the Greek Bacchus and the Norwegian Loki. (Etymologically, Uzume means "whirling", but I quite fell in love with the name and I'm disinclined to change it.) In the Japanese educational system, Daigakuin are undergraduate colleges, and Daigakuin Daigaku are graduate schools. Wazuma is Japanese stage magic, slight-of-hand and the like. _

* * *

By the time the opening feast rolled around, Harry Potter was truly ruing the day that he'd allowed Hermione, Ron, and Mrs. Weasley to persuade him to return to Hogwarts. While having the run of the entire Hogwarts Express to share with what could have been no more than 40 other students had its benefits—lots of legroom, almost no Slytherins worth worrying about, no run-ins with unfriendly prefects—those same benefits did not apply to the nigh-empty Great Hall. There were so few students that all of them fit at one table, the other three having been magicked away over the summer. Hufflepuff barely had enough students remaining to muster a full Quidditch squad; of the Gryffindors in his year, only he, Hermione, Ron, Dean Thomas, and Neville Longbottom remained. Hermione had been named Head Girl (to no one's surprise but her own), and Anthony Goldstein of Ravenclaw had been named Head Boy. (This last news caused Ron a considerable bit of consternation, but at last he reckoned that ever since Percy had worn the Head Boy badge, it was probably cursed.) 

"Five first years, blimey; they don't really need us prefects, do they?" Ron said under his breath as the first years marched in for sorting with Professor Flitwick, the new Deputy Headmaster. After what Hermione pointed out was the shortest sorting ceremony recorded in _Hogwarts: A History_ (in which Kevin Creevey, a third Creevey brother, and Elise O'Connor, a wide-eyed Muggle-born, were sorted into Gryffindor), McGonagall rose to her feet at the staff table to say a few words. Harry noted grimly that a few of the staff, in addition to Snape, appeared to have departed with equal haste as the majority of the student body. Slughorn had returned, surprisingly, although he continued to steal furtive glances at McGonagall as though he hoped to slink off while she wasn't looking. Only one new face had appeared, a woman who looked slightly familiar but whom Harry couldn't place.

"Due to the dangers inherent in having so many students outdoors, Quidditch has been cancelled," McGonagall added, snapping Harry's wandering attention back to her with a jolt.

"Oh, come on; you can't say you're surprised," interjected Hermione in a dismissive whisper, and he nodded tersely.

"As you may have noticed, we now have had several changes on the staff in light of recent...losses. I am now Headmistress, but I shall continue to teach Transfiguration as usual," she stated.

"Thank heaven," Hermione breathed.

"Professor Flitwick of Ravenclaw has taken on the position of Deputy Headmaster, and Professor Slughorn has graciously accepted the responsibilities of Head of House for Slytherin House." Slughorn smiled, a grim, forced leer that suggested that either dinner hadn't agreed with him, or that his acquiescence to McGonagall's request was anything but gracious.

"We have also retained, for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, Professor Sakura Uzume, late of Wazuma Daigakuin Daigaku of Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan."

The woman seated in the Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor's chair rose to her feet beside McGonagall and waved, a rather cheeky gesture in Harry's judgment. She wore resplendent, high-necked robes of teal brocade, and her thick, shining black hair was pulled back into a high series of buns and swoops, laced throughout with cherry blossoms and black enameled chopsticks. She had merry-looking, slanted brown eyes, and what little skin they could see looked like fine china, making her resemble an extremely lifelike and incredibly fragile porcelain doll.

"_That's _Sakura Uzume? _The _Sakura Uzume? The Japanese witch Charlie brought to the wedding?" Hermione whispered.

"Yeh. They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one," Ron muttered.

"Ron, don't you read _Advances in Defense Against The Dark Arts_? She's one of the world's foremost experts in combat magic; she's written loads of innovative articles," Hermione replied with a hint of exasperation.

"Rita Skeeter's written a load of innovative articles, too, but they're not necessarily useful," Ron retorted. "She can't be that strong in Defense, can she? Just a little tiny Japanese lady."

Hermione stared at him, incredulous. "Haven't you learned anything, Ron? Outward appearances are deceiving! I mean, look at the people we know, like Sirius--" she backtracked, knowing it was a sore subject with Harry, "erm, like your mum! She looks like a happy sweet little lady, but she really can give you what-for!"

"C'moff it, Hermione! She looks like she'd break if you dropped her!"

"Oh, you're hopeless," Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes.

While they had been bickering, Harry's mind had wandered back to where he had last seen the Japanese witch. _Mrs. Weasley, Ron, and Hermione were sitting across the table from him; Bill and Fleur had already left the reception and the torches were burning low. "Dear, you have to return to Hogwarts, at least until the holidays. We'll all be ever-so-worried," Mrs. Weasley was fretting. Her words washed over him uselessly. _

"_If not for your own safety, then at least do it for strategic purposes. We both know there's no place that Voldemort wants more—oh, for Heaven's sake," Hermione had said exasperatedly as both Mrs. Weasley and Ron flinched. Harry hadn't noticed, he was looking over their shoulders to where Charlie Weasley was standing, with three witches who were speaking in hushed tones with several members of the Order: a short, slender, merry-looking one with honey-colored braids that he had recognized as Lee Jordan's elder sister Saundra; a tall, angular, sharp-edged one with severe-looking, peppermint-green eyes and deep crimson spiral curls, so dark they were almost maroon; and a willowy, merry-looking Oriental witch, with thick black hair and a sapphire-colored satin kimono._

"Ron's got a point, Hermione. We've never had a competent woman professor in Defense Against the Dark Arts," Harry commented.

Over the summer, Harry had learned to take their bickering in stride, appreciating it as a bit of an art that was entertaining to watch, but even more entertaining to prod in the directions he wanted it to go. This time, Hermione took his bait and drew herself up to her full, seated height, her bushy hair quivering. "Just because Dolores Umbridge was a pea-brained hag, that doesn't mean that all witches are."

"Well, she's assigned Umbridge's book, didn't she?" Ron accused. "_Defensive Magical Apathy_, by Wilbert Slimehard, World-Class Prat. Oh, that's going to be a _really_ thrilling class. Ripping. Brilliant. And first thing tomorrow morning, too. I might skive off the very first day, honestly."

"Ronald Weasley, YOU. ARE. A. PREFECT." Hermione enunciated each word as a separate sentence. There was a dangerous pause, after which she tutted dismissively, "Besides, the bookstore probably got it wrong."

"When has Flourish and Blotts ever got anything wrong?" Harry asked. Hermione pointedly ignored him, applying herself to renewed vigor to listening to McGonagall, who was now going over new security proceedings.

"In the absence of ... our former headmaster; there are many who believe that He Who Must Not Be Named and his followers will be attacking with renewed fervor. The Ministry of Magic has made some..._modifications_...to Hogwarts in an effort to ensure your safety." Harry noted the disdain in her voice, and, recalling the last time the Ministry had made any modifications to Hogwarts, gulped. "In order to cut down on unnecessary time in the halls, a team of technicians from the Ministry has installed an internal Floo network inside the castle so that students may Floo from their common rooms directly to their classes. Students are not to use the corridors unless absolutely necessary. We've put further shields and wards on the school; however, I must warn you that _under no circumstances_ is any student to attempt to take on You-Know-Who or any of his followers." McGonagall peered severely over her spectacles at the table of them. "Failure to comply will result in severe penalties to yourself and your House. "

_Well_, Harry thought to himself, _There's yet another rule I'll just have to break._

_

* * *

_

Shortly thereafter, McGonagall shooed all the students off to their common rooms, but asked the Prefects to stay behind. Neville was talking with Luna in the back of the queue, which left Harry alone to wander back to Gryffindor Tower. "Shibboleth," Harry muttered to the Fat Lady, who swung open a crack just small enough to admit him and slammed shut rather quickly, almost trapping Harry's robes.

With only five or six students in it, the common room seemed positively dismal, and so Harry ascended the stairs to the seventh-year boys' dormitory, seriously contemplating climbing astride his Firebolt and pulling a Weasley.

These thoughts were interrupted when he found Hedwig sitting on his bed atop a large box and a letter. He reached out absently to stroke her, and was completely shocked when the white owl bit his finger, hard, drawing crimson blood.

"Oi!" Harry cried crossly. "What was that for?" Hedwig settled back down on the box and the letter, and he reached out for them, picked them up, and moved them to his desk. He turned back to the bed to sit down.

This time, Hedwig shot straight for him, resentfully hooting and flapping her wings about his head like a large snowy bat. "Look, I don't want to be locked up here any more than you do!" Harry shouted at her as she fussed around his face, landing a particularly nasty nip on his ear. "All right, I'll open it, but only if you sod off!" He tore open the letter and waved it at her. "There, you see? I've opened it!" he snapped, and slammed open the window with a bang. "Honestly."

Hedwig flew out the window, with a furious hoot of righteous indignation. Still grumbling, Harry settled himself on his bed and looked at the letter.

It was on a rather garish-looking letterhead, from the barrister's firm of Blackstone, Dowery, Habeas, and Limine, L.L. W.B., motto: _Quando legis haesito, nunquam legis exsisto_ . Flashy text at the top advertised, alternatingly, that William Blackstone was fluent in Legalese, that Gideon Habeas was an expert in estate law, and that Clytemnestra Dowery and Doreen Limine were certified members of the Wizengamot bar. Harry snorted—his opinion of the Wizengamot was rather low, owing to the fact that in over a year, no one had filed an inquiry into Stan Shunpike's placement in Azkaban.

The form letter was addressed to

**Master/Mistress** _Harry James Potter, Esq.  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
Gryffindor Tower, 7th Year Boys' Dormitory_

**In The Matter of:** _The Estate of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_

**Dear Master/Mistress **_Potter,_

**Your name was mentioned in the last will and testament of** _Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore_. **You were left the following items, which are/are not /are partially enclosed:  
**

_The contents of the desk of Severus Snape  
__Custody of one (1) phoenix, Fawkes (phoenix not enclosed, see below)  
__One (1) Pensieve (Pensieve not enclosed, see below)  
__One (1) personal letter  
__One (1) map  
__One (1) necklace _

Should you accept the above items, please send the attached acceptance paperwork by return owl at your leisure/as soon as possible/yesterday.

Once again, Blackstone, Dowery, Habeas, and Limine are truly sorry for your loss.

Yours sincerely,

G. F. M. Habeas, I.F.P.W.B.

Gideon Fullilove Marbury Habeas  
Member, International  
Federation of Practicing  
Wizard Barristers

Phoenixes are Class E magical creatures that cannot be delivered by owl unless directly signed for and received by recipient. Ministry of Magic Owl Safety Decree #125  
Pensieves are Class H magical objects that are private and cannot be carried by magical creatures of any kind. All Class H magical objects must be delivered by a Ministry-licensed courier. Ministry of Magic Privacy Decree #713

Harry crushed the parchment facedown into the soft surface of his bed. He didn't want Dumbledore's things to be his. He wanted them to still be Dumbledore's. Reading the letter would only mean something if it told Harry how to bring Dumbledore back from the dead; which was doubtful. Having Fawkes around would be useful, but it would only serve to emphasize that his owner, Dumbledore, was no longer alive. But still, he couldn't decline the items. He decided that he would send the paperwork tomorrow: there could be no possible way he could Floo to the Owlery this late, and Hedwig was in such high dudgeon that she wouldn't be returning this evening.

He really didn't want to open the box; not even the prospect of setting fire to Snape's belongings held even the slightest interest for him. Listlessly, he sat, and imagined what the letter might say; some drivel perhaps, about how "death was but the next great adventure." He had no use for a necklace, and the map would only make him even angrier that he was stuck here at school.

Just then, Ron burst into the room, disgruntled. "They're making Prefects do rounds in the corridors all night long," the redhead complained. "Pain in my arse, that…"

Harry showed Ron the letter. "What's he on about, leaving you the contents of Snape's desk?" Brown eyes peered at Harry over the top of the letter. "Checked this with your Sneakoscope?"

"Good idea," Harry said. "_Accio Sneakoscope_!" The Pocket Sneakoscope came flying out of his trunk towards him, and he caught it deftly in one hand. Tapping it once with his wand toactivate it, he held the sphere above the letter. There was no reaction.

"Looks like there's nothing dodgy on there…just a bunch of boring barristers. Blimey, I'm tired. I think I'm going to go to bed," Ron yawned. "Got all-night-rounds tomorrow night and Defense first thing in the ruddy morning."

Harry stayed up, and stared at the ceiling, going over his list of Horcruxes in his mind. Hufflepuff's cup they had found behind wards and shields at Borgin and Burkes. Theodore Nott had helped them there— the stringy Slytherin boy had met them one day at the Hog's Head, and told them in whispers about a restricted corner he had found while on the job at Borgin and Burkes. They'd been wary, at first, but Tonks had watched the shop for a few days, even wandering in, once, in guise of Rabastan Lestrange. Theo Nott had bluntly refused to sell her anything, and had shown her the door. They approached him again about dealing with the cup, and he had let them in after hours. The cup was filled with vile, slow-acting venom that wouldn't empty out of the cup unless drunk. There was no way that the boys were going to let Hermione drink that one: over her protests, Harry and Ron had split the cup. Ron had gone first, gagging and crumpling to the ground while Hermione scurried to push a bezoar down his throat, pale as death with concern, and Harry had tipped the foul cup upwards. He'd awoken a day later in St. Mungo's, after a two-day stay, he'd been released. Augustus Pye had blessedly failed to inform the Ministry of their hospitalization.

They'd found Ravenclaw's sapphire-encrusted bronze dagger that summer, in Lancashire, deep below Gideon and Fabian Prewett's old cottage. He had a mental image of Hermione dragging the vicious tip of the triple-bladed knife across the inside of her upturned arm, defiance in her face, while Ron turned pale green behind her. The knife had required the blood of a Muggle-born in order to be removed from its case. It was typical of Tom Riddle's disdain for wizards that weren't pureblooded that he had assumed that such a wizard would be unable to bypass the traps he'd set and get to the dagger. Neither Harry nor Ron had wanted her to do it, they'd begged her to wait until they could fetch someone from the Order, Sturgis Podmore perhaps, but she had insisted it be done quickly, before they were discovered. He winced as he thought of the nasty scar that ran from mid-bicep to wrist, which was why the girl would only wear long-sleeved jumpers now.

Harry thought of the beautiful but deadly instrument that was residing in a padded, locked box in his trunk: its handle carved out of a single, solid sapphire that had to have been the size of an ostrich egg, the pommel of solid bronze, and its three graceful silver blades carved like serrated snowflakes and all tapering to a vicious point. He wondered why he'd even brought it, snorting at the idea that someone at Hogwarts—other than Dumbledore, he thought ruefully—would be capable of removing the piece of Voldemort's soul from the Horcrux.

Slytherin's locket…Harry wished that Dumbledore had started telling him things a year earlier; the older wizard might still be alive if he had. The moment Ginny had seen the false Horcrux Harry had brought home, she'd pointed out that they'd thrown an almost identical one away at Sirius's two summers ago. It had instantly hit them: R.A.B was Regulus Apollyon Black, the cowardly Death Eater brother that Sirius had sneered at, murdered by Voldemort. It was still at large.

And Nagini…well, best to deal with that as they came to it. To kill Nagini would only alert Voldemort that other witches and wizards were destroying his Horcruxes, and that was the last thing they wanted him to know. He rolled over on his side tetchily. Sleep would be a long time in coming tonight.

* * *

Harry was forced to forgo breakfast in order to visit the Owlery and persuade a grumpy Hedwig to take his letter back to Blackstone, Dowery, Habeas, and Limine. He only Flooed back to the Gryffindor common room just in time to avoid running head-on into Hermione, who was the first in the queue of sixth and seventh years lining up at the common-room fire for Defense. She cast him a disapproving look as he hurried to the back of the queue. 

As he took a pinch of powder from the waiting urn, still yawning, Harry thought to himself ruefully of his first Floo trip, that had landed him at Borgin and Burkes, and hoped that he didn't end up in the Slytherin dormitories by mistake. "Defense Against The Dark Arts," he commanded as he threw down the powder and stepped into the fireplace. He spun around only once or twice, then was pushed out into the rear of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and settled into a seat beside Ron and Hermione.

"See, Hermione?" Ron murmured as he stretched. "No one should have to be up this early, not even the house-elves….even the professor's late."

Just then, the rear door of the classroom opened with a loud _thunk_, and the willowy Japanese witch strode into the front of their classroom. Gone were her resplendent teal brocade robes, replaced by a practical looking pair of black pants and a rust-red padded doublet under a long white linen outer robe; she also carried a four-foot-long black staff that came down to a malicious-looking point. No longer resembling the delicate, perfect geisha that she had at the opening feast, Uzume looked all business as she asked the class, "Does everyone have their books?" Harry started. She spoke disorientingly perfect English, of a type of accent Harry couldn't quite place, but knew he had heard before. "Good. Leave them in your dormitories next class, chuck them in the fire on your way out if you'd like. You'll never need them again."

Hermione looked positively faint with disappointment.

"Now," she said as she tossed her staff at an ornate hat rack, which reached out a gnarled three-clawed hand to catch it, "My name is Sakura Uzume. I would prefer that you just call me Sakura, or Uzume; this Professor Uzume business makes me feel horribly old, but, if it makes you feel more comfortable you may most certainly call me just Professor." She reached over to the hatrack and extracted her wand, which looked like an enameled ebony chopstick, from the end of the staff. "If you'd be so kind as to step away from your desks?" she asked. "I know it's early, but please."

Grudgingly, Harry started the process of detaching himself from his desk, amidst scattered grumblings as the rest of the class laggardly began to comply around him. "And take your things. Quickly, if you please? I would hate for any of you to be run over by a desk on your first day." This inspired somewhat more rapid movement to the front of the room. "_Crevaccio_!" Desk-shaped niches opened in the walls like yawning mouths, and the desks themselves shot like bullets to the walls and sealed themselves into them within seconds, leaving a wide, open space.

Uzume walked over to a large roll of thick matting. "As you may have heard" she said, grunting as she lifted it, "this year's class will focus more" here a satisfied heave as she dropped them on the floor "on practical magical combat: self-protection, dueling, and the like. Grades will largely be based on skills as opposed to paper tests and lectures. We'll also have a brief unit on some physical forms of combat." She glared at a grinning Slytherin sixth year whom Harry would have sworn was a doppelgänger of Vincent Crabbe. "**_But not many_**, so don't go thinking you can take the mickey out of each other for extra credit." The Crabbe clone's face returned to the stony expression that he always bore. Sakura rested a slippered foot on the rolled-up mat and looked about, breathlessly. "Right-o. Hands up if you were in Dumbledore's Army."

"How the hell did she know about that?" Hermione swore under her breath.

As though she'd heard them, she said, "I'm not Dolores Umbridge, it won't hurt your faces and I won't punish you," Uzume said. Seeing a classroom absented of a forest of hands, she added, "It's all right if you don't trust me now, though. Understandable that you can't trust someone you just met, especially considering that only one of your last six instructors in this course was worth trusting. You know who you are; and I look to you to help your classmates." She kicked the rolled-up mat, and it unrolled with a spectacular series of thumps. She then waved her wand, and dull rust-red piles appeared before each of them. "Now you all have--your armor, and we'll begin with some light dueling. Nothing major. Just things you should already know."

Hermione raised her hand hesitantly, and Sakura looked as though she were about to dance on the spot. "Yes?" she said expectantly.

"Isn't dueling in the school---against Hogwarts rules?" Hermione asked timidly.

"Oh, rules. Right-o. Quite forgot about that, but I can't exactly teach you to duel without actually dueling, can I? How about this...since we've already spread the room out, we'll do some Tai Chi for the rest of the class, and I'll get special permission from McGonagall before the next session, how's that?" she asked, as though Hermione's approval was necessary.

"Well...I'm sure...it's not a _problem_..." Hermione stuttered, flustered. Harry watched the internal struggle playing out on her face: the desire for further knowledge doing battle with her instinct for law and order.

"Well…if that's the case then, and so long as none of you lot sells me out to the Headmistress….I suppose we can start today?" Uzume asked, with the expectant Christmas-morning look on her face again. Hermione nodded nervously, and the Japanese professor beamed.

"Brilliant. Everyone find a dueling partner, slip on your armor, spread out…" The room erupted into a flurry of motion and flying arms as students slipped into the dull, rust-red doublets like the one Sakura was wearing. "By the by, I'd like to ask that the ladies wear pants next class, and everyone should at least bring a pair of trainers, if you're not going to wear them in class," Sakura called over the noisy movement. Harry poked at the padding—it wasn't half-bad, truthfully, and he almost wanted to keep it. It felt like it would be useful in a fight.

"Hm, let me pull an O student at random to be my partner. How about…" She stabbed a blank piece of parchment with her wand, and spidery script appeared on it. "Weasley, Ronald."

Ron, who had partnered with Hermione, grimaced. "No? Already found a partner? Allright then," she said brightly as she poked the parchment again.

"Patil, Parvati." She looked up. "No longer _here_. Third shot's the charm, allright, let's go…." She jabbed the parchment a third time. "Goldstein, Anthony."

Harry, who had still been seeking a partner that wasn't one of Romilda Vane's clones, jolted. He'd been hoping half-heartedly that the professor would call his name. If this Uzume person didn't know her stuff, he'd know in a few moments whether staying at Hogwarts would be worth his while. As Anthony Goldstein walked away from his partner, Harry zipped over quickly to take his place, and found himself, with an unpleasant start, facing Ginny Weasley.

She smiled. "We meet again."

"Indeed." As he turned to listen to Uzume, Harry had the sinking feeling that he was going to come out of this lesson with a galloping case of bat bogeys.

Uzume was walking up and down the rows, teaching them how to cast two spells at the same time. "It requires a lot of concentration, you have to cast one verbally and one non-verbally. But you're all sixth and seventh years, and if you'd had a decent teacher in the classroom your OWL year, you'd know how." It's usually easiest to cast _Protego_ non-verbally, so we'll start with that." She squared up before Anthony Goldstein, and said, "Right-o. Partners closest to the windows, you will be Group A, the rest of you, Group B…Group A, watch me. Anthony, cast a Stunner at me, now."

Anthony looked scandalized. "But—I'm Head Boy! I can't stun a _teacher_!"

"Trust me, if you succeed, you'll never have to do homework in my class," Sakura said. "Same goes for the lot of you. If anyone succeeds in Stunning me before the year is out, you'll be excused from attending class, with top marks. Only rules are, no more than one person trying at a time, and only during class! No fair sneaking up in the corridors." Harry rather liked the sound of an extra hour of sleep, and resolved to try it; from the sound around him, so had the rest of the class.

"Ready, Anthony?" The Ravenclaw boy nodded. "One…two…three…" Anthony shouted, "_Stupefy!_" at the same time that Sakura yawned, _"Expelliarmus!"_ and flicked the sharp end of her chopstick-like wand. The scarlet jet of her spell knocked Anthony back a bit as his wand flew from his hand; she caught it deftly as his Stunner bounced harmlessly off the Shield Charm. "Allright then, group B, have a go. But with _Expelliarmus_, please! In fact, all of you, use _Expelliarmus_, or if you know any interesting short-term hexes, use that; I haven't got time to carry you all up to the hospital wing." Sakura hadn't noticed that she'd accidentally disarmed Dean Thomas and Luna Lovegood until their wands practically hit her in the face. "Sorry…Look sharp!" She tossed the wands back to Luna and Dean. "Ready then? Group A: Three, two, one…GO!"

Harry yelled, "_Rictusempra!_" at the same time that Ginny called, "_Protego!_" and, sure enough, sent an orange jet shooting viciously towards him, which he ducked. He was not so fortunate, however, as to duck his own Tickling Curse, which rebounded on him and sent him to the floor in a fit of giggles. From the looks of it, it was almost doing the same for Ginny, which heightened the factor of embarrassment for Harry, a factor only tripled by the appearance of Uzume beside them. "Miss ---erm, I'm terrible with names, you are?" She consulted that same parchment. "Weasley, Ginevra, and Potter, Harry." She looked at him a moment, as though she wanted to say something, but thought better of it. "Right. Miss Weasley and Mr. Potter have done it…albeit a bit unconventionally—did you use _Rictusempra_, Ginevra?

"Ginny," she said.

"Ah, Ginny…well, did you?" Ginny shook her head no. "Oh, I see. Right. Harry must've used it then, and his own curse rebounded on him." The professor raised her voice to the rest of the class. "Something for you lot to watch out for, allright? Don't get hit by your own hexes. OK, then, _Finite incantatem!_" Students around the room rose from the floor, and bat-bogeys disappeared from the faces of several of the students. Sakura scurried across the room to bring Zacharias Smith back to enervation.

"Should've left him, the prat…" Ginny muttered.

"Your real name is Ginevra?" Harry asked, a bit amused. She cast him a dangerous glare, which he didn't have time to answer because Sakura's voice was ringing out across the classroom.

"All right, group B, your turn. Cast _Protego_ nonverbally, _Expelliarmus_ verbally. On my mark...Three…two…one…and GO!"

* * *

**A/N again: **Thanks for all your reviews! The overwhelming question seems to be whether Akiko Vance is related to Emmeline, and the answer for now is, "All will be revealed in the next chapter, (provided I haven't been snowed under with work by then.)" I was quite upset at the fact that my barristers' firm letter wouldn't display properly, as I had a significant amount of fun with that part of the story. The motto _Quando legis haesito, nunquam legis exsisto _means "Where the law hesitates, there is no law." Bonus points if you recognize all of the legal terms and cases crammed into the firm's (and barrister's) name.  



	3. Of Vance and the Veil

_**A/N:** Witches and gentlewizards, please please please review! Even if you want to copy-paste "I hate it and you suck."  
Since no one took me up on ID'ing all the elements of my law firm, William Blackstone was a British legal authority in the 1800's, Dowery refers to a right under which widows have the right to partial control over a trust left to their husbands before their husbands die, Habeas (perhaps the most obvious) refers to Habeas Corpus, the right to appear in court, and a motion made in Limine is made before a trial begins. Gideon (v. Wainwright) Fullilove (v. Klotznick) Marbury (v. Madison) Habeas was originally Gideon Filibuster Habeas, the heir to the Filibuster Firework fortune...and a thoroughly embittered Squib. (While the irony was fun, I couldn't think of a way for him to appear, and so he was renamed, in favor of centuries of precedent (albeit American precedent))._

* * *

Beyond the Veil, Emmeline Vance lived in a world of her favorite memories: being named a Prefect for Ravenclaw, graduating with top marks from Hogwarts, being made a member of the Order of the Phoenix. By and large, however, one of her favorites was a night when Albus Dumbledore had knocked on her door with a bundle wrapped in his arms—a beautiful baby girl, two years old, with delicate golden-skinned features and enormous almond-shaped eyes. The seventeen years that had followed that day were some of her favorites. She swirled the cocoa in her mug, thinking about one of the last times she had seen the grown witch that had emerged from that bundle over the years, and closed her eyes, reopening them to find herself inside the memory. 

_ Snow was falling merrily on Diagon Alley by the time the Japanese witch Apparated in from the Wizengamot. A sullen-looking wizard inside Slug & Jiggers Apothecary caught the girl's eye and she waved at him, a lopsided smile curving her lips. A raging maroon rose in his sallow cheeks, and a smirk split his face as she disappeared inside the Leaky Cauldron. _

_ Akiko fought her way through the teeming packs of witches and wizards in the crowded Leaky Cauldron, waving a cheery "hello" to Tom the barman, who waved back and immediately conjured forth a flute of mead for her. "Seen Emmeline?" she called to him as she pushed a handful of Sickles and Knuts across the bar, and he pointed to a corner booth where a fortyish, brown-haired witch in a sapphire-blue cloak was waiting. "Thanks, Tom!" she called, as she struggled through the crowd, holding her goblet overhead to protect it from being jostled, and finally making it over to Emmeline. She hugged the older witch fiercely, pressing a wrapped parcel into her arms. "Got you a present," she said brightly, bouncing on her toes. "Go on, open it!" Emmeline pulled the paper apart, dearly hoping that it wasn't a book, and found a beautiful, emerald-green shawl from Gladrags Wizardwear inside it. _

"_Oh, dear, it's just lovely. Thank you," Emmeline gushed, and rose to her feet to hug Akiko again, fussing briefly over a few flakes of snow on Kiko's deep amethyst Wizengamot robes before they sat down "So...did you find out about..."Akiko began, but Emmeline cut her off. _

"_Oh, let's not talk about that yet. How is your job going, dear? Griselda Marchbanks not working you too hard, is she?"_

"_I love it; I write a lot of background opinions as a clerk, it's a good deal of work but I enjoy it." The younger witch's almond eyes glowed. Her passionate fervor for the law was admirable, but odd in a capable witch: the vast majority of wizarding barristers were Squibs, capable of no other vocation but clerical and academic work. _

"_You look pale, Kiko. I worry about you sometimes...you do so much."_

"_I'm fine, Mum," Akiko insisted, with a twinge. Even though Emmeline had told her how her parents died when she was five, Akiko still slipped and called her "Mum" on occasion. "But that's not why I'm here."_

_ Emmeline's smile faded somewhat. "You're not going to like the reason why."_

"_The truth is the truth, even if it hurts," Akiko mused. It was a phrase Emmeline had used with her many times. _

_ Emmeline breathed in heavily, swirling cocoa in her mug. "Well, I don't think it was a very good reason on their part, first of all...but..." She paused, examining Kiko's face. She'd raised the witch as though she'd been her own daughter, ever since Albus Dumbledore had knocked on her door almost 17 years ago, and knew her well enough to know that the redness rising in her cheeks wasn't a result of the warmth of the bustling bar_. By Merlin, I have dreaded telling you this; you'll positively explode..._She sighed, and admitted, "It was because he was in Slytherin, Akiko. No one wants to take a chance on a potential Dark wizard these days...I know, **I know** he's not, dear," she added soothingly, seeing, the younger woman's jaw drop in disbelief, "But you've got to admit, he does look the part..."_

_** Clang**. Akiko knocked her glass to the table, but ignored it completely as a raw hurricane of fury stormed across her face. Her words poured forth in torrents just as quickly as the growing puddle of mead staining the tablecloth as she sputtered, "But...that's just ruddy **unfair**. Loads of Slytherins from the old pureblood families get jobs all the time! Bella and Cissy Black got hired by the Ministry straight out of school…not that they needed jobs, but still!" _

_ Emmeline watched in bemusement as the young witch paused, heaving a deep and angry breath as she formulated her argument. She had observed Akiko in bad humor far more times than anyone else; normally the girl was bright and sunny, but even the most optimistic of witches could be pushed to her breaking point, and it was this issue that typically did it. It was best to let her indignation expend itself rather than argue with her at this point._

"_And it doesn't bloody matter whether Severus 'looks the part' or not! You can't judge based on looks...besides, St. Mungo's is one to talk, honestly...after all, that Rackharrow bloke, the chap who invented the Entrail-Expelling Curse, well, he isn't exactly the picture of goodness and light, now is he?"_

_ Finally noticing the mess she'd made, Akiko whipped her wand from the loose knot of hair at the nape of her neck and cleared the table with a practiced flick as she continued to fume. "That's employment discrimination, that is...Oooh, if I had my barrister's license..."_

"_Severus would never let you file suit on his behalf, and you know it," Emmeline pointed out. She had to admit, Akiko's fierce underlying temper was probably the only reason she could hold her own with the unpredictable Slytherin boy's capricious bad humors and volatile pride, but in a sense, their turbulent natures made them kindred spirits. _Not that it made either of them any more pleasant to the rest of the wizarding world when their hackles were raised…But you had to pick your battles, and Akiko's righteous indignation occurred so infrequently that it wasn't one of them.

_ As Akiko wrapped her wand back into her long, thick ponytail of black hair, still grumbling, Emmeline added, "I wish you wouldn't stow your wand back there, dear; anyone could take it. Not to mention that you could vanish your spine by accident."_

"_All right," Akiko sighed, and removed it, conjuring forth an identical black chopstick, and then stowing her wand in her sleeve. _

"_Don't tell him, dear. I know, I know… it's not my place to tell you how to handle things with him, but there's no possible way he'd take it very well," Emmeline advised her. _

"_Wasn't planning on it," Akiko said moodily, taking a sip from her restored glass. "He'd be devastated." She paused, recalculating, then said, "No, well, first he'd be furious, then he'd seethe about for a few days and bite the head off everyone he met, but sooner or later when he'd calmed down again, he might get around to being devastated. If he hadn't done anything drastic by then."_

_ They prattled on for a few more hours, until the Leaky Cauldron was almost cleared. Lily Evans and her fiancé, James Potter, had wandered by to say hello: Emmeline always loved to see fellow members of the Order. If she'd set her mind to it, Akiko could probably have been a member as well, but she loved the law too much. _

_ Finally, as the bar was beginning to close, Severus Snape meandered in, looking gloomy as ever as he searched the place for Akiko. Emmeline watched as Kiko popped to her feet brightly and motioned the tall, stringy boy over to the table. "Kiko, sweetheart? I think I'm going to leave. For now," Emmeline told her. _

_ Akiko met her eyes. "Are you sure?" she asked. "We don't mind…"_

"_No, love. I need some sleep, anyway, so you two have a good evening. Hello there, Severus," Emmeline said, greeting the boy with a warm handshake. _

_ He inclined his head, formal as always. "Madam Vance…" he started, but she cut him off with a correcting tone of voice. "Emmeline. We're all adults now, Severus." He turned slightly red, and Emmeline decided it was best not to pursue the matter further.  
_

_ Akiko hugged Emmeline furiously once more, with a smile, and then whispered in her ear, "We'll be 'round first thing on Boxing Day; you can count on that."_

The Emmeline behind the Veil smiled into her cocoa, wondering when she would encounter her adopted daughter. Hopefully, she would find Akiko sometime soon—she'd already found the Potters, and her old classmate Amelia Bones. Akiko had to be here somewhere, and eventually, they would be reunited.


	4. Of Reading and Remembralls

Aside from being assaulted by homework and prepping for the LSAT, this chapter has just been murderous _hell_ to write, because the fun parts in the middle and the end (and the next fic/OC in chronological order, actually...I've got this all plotted out) are just so much more distracting, and my brain would rather go back and pick those apart than write something new, yet mildly boring and expository.

So, once again, sorry for the long wait, and here's the next chapter, which is coming in spurts with several more. Please read and review!

* * *

Severus Snape loathed _Advances in Defense Against the Dark Arts_. While it seemed like a humorous prospect to take a look at what Albus Dumbledore's silly team of fools had cooked up to defend themselves, it often turned out to be some simple drivel involving—he shuddered—_love_. Given his preference, he'd rather pore over _Potente Potions Periodicalle _during breakfast (as he often found that dealing with Wormtail significantly diminished his appetite); but it hadn't arrived in months: its editor, Nicholas Flamel, had left fifty future issues to sustain his readers when he had decided to succumb to death, but his executors had exhausted that material without bothering to appoint a successor to generate new content. Severus had loved potions once, but years of teaching it to incompetent dunderheads had utterly ruined the subtle science for him.

Of course, he was still teaching it to a select few larger and older bumbling idiots, but with one ever-so-slight difference: were he to point out their incompetence to these powerful few, they were fully capable of casting an Unforgivable at him, or reporting him to the Dark Lord. _Their pureblood heritage would carry more weight with the Dark Lord, _Snape thought, weighing his secret desire to inform MacNair of the precise and spectacular degree of his utter stupidity.

Still, Severus thought to himself, _Advances in Defense Against the Dark Arts _had one good point: its monthly columnist, Sakura Uzume, was breathtakingly beautiful in the sense that she looked like a deadlier version of his Akiko, the pretty pixie of so many years ago. This fact, while it made looking at her photograph a pleasant experience, diminished any respect he may have harbored for what the writer had to say in the paragraphs beneath it. Yet, occasionally and not completely by accident, Uzume had something mildly intelligent to say; Severus had incorporated her dueling suggestions into his style more than once. He had eventually determined, through a few of the Dark Lord's contacts in recordhouses in Japan, that Akiko was (by birth) Uzume's second cousin, once removed.

As he flicked absently through the parchment pages of the new edition, he couldn't help thinking that he had known Uzume, once—according to records she'd lived in London during the First War, only a few blocks from where he had been living—but if he had encountered her, it had been in a time where he had been distracted by more pressing matters. He shook his head, fiercely, dismissing the thought as merely a particularly strong incidence of déjà vu, and finally came to the page where Sakura Uzume's column was printed, to find a photograph of—Merlin's beard—a heart-faced witch with brown eyes and spiky hair of an odious hue of pink that assaulted the optic nerves. The hallmarks of a particularly despised former student were unmistakably burnt into his memory: a clumsy, cheerful fourth year, whom he never would have admitted into his NEWT classes had it not been for the intervention of influential family members, and who had been the bane of his existence for his first several years of teaching. Thankfully, by the time he had had the misfortune of encountering Nymphadora Tonks in adult life, Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter had long since ousted her from her position as Most Despised Imbecile of All Time.

"What the—" he skimmed over the words of the article, finding them just as vapid as he had expected them to be, until he came upon a small box at the bottom of the column, which said, "Former columnist Sakura Uzume, late of Wazuma Daigakuin Daigaku, has accepted a post as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We wish her all the best as we rotate through interim columnists."

So Akiko's cousin was at Hogwarts...which meant she was somewhere in Britain again, instead of half a world away. _Interesting_, Severus thought to himself. _Very...interesting_.

Later that week, Ron, Harry, and Hermione were sitting on Ron's bed in Gryffindor Tower, working on homework. Of late, they had found the common room to be too empty for comfort, and had avoided it entirely when not Flooing to and from class. "Blimey, if I didn't know better I'd think they were all trying to kill us," said Ron, slamming shut a book he'd just finished using to write a vicious essay for McGonagall.

"You know why they're assigning more, though, don't you? They want us to be prepared," Hermione replied evenly.

"Yeah, well, Sakura's the only one that's prepared me for anything so far, and she's not asked us to touch quill to paper outside of class," Ron retorted.

"So you admit you were wrong about her, then?" Hermione asked pointedly. Ron pretended not to hear, and Hermione looked over to Harry. "Harry…have you opened that box yet?"

"I don't want to," Harry muttered, sliding off the bed and letting his feet hit the floor.

"Oh, but," Hermione began, but he interrupted her viciously as he shuffled to his own bed.

"But _nothing_, Hermione. I don't want to bloody hear it," he said, as, wand in hand, he batted a pile of junk off his bed. Suddenly, there was a loud squealing noise from beneath the rubbish Harry had scraped onto the floor. "That's dodgy," he commented, quizzically, pulling a few shirts off the floor until he located the source of the squealing: a ball, made of thin blown glass, which, once he lifted it, ceased squealing but continued to stay red.

"What's under…" he pulled a few more books and shirts off the floor until he found the Dark object: the box, stamped with the letterhead of Blackstone, Dowery, Habeas, and Limine, LL.W.B. He looked at Hermione, who motioned for him to open it. "All right," he said defeatedly. "I'll open it. I'll **_open_** it." He straightened, and intoned, _"Diffindo!_" as he touched the top of the box with his wand, then jumped back.

The top of the box fell open rather anticlimactically. The three of them stared, as though expecting something else to happen: Harry standing there, Ron sitting on his bed with one jumper-clad arm wrapped around Hermione's collarbone like a long, maroon scarf. After nothing happened for several seconds, Ron finally harrumphed nervously and asked, "Wotcha reckon's in there?"

"Dunno. Probably Snape's things that're the Dark stuff," Harry replied. He prodded about with his wand. "I don't fancy pawing through the old greasy git's personal things…"

"Oh, _honestly_," Hermione groaned, extracting herself from Ron's arms, and reached down inside the box. She pulled out a large, sealed parchment envelope, a smaller, sealed parchment envelope, a folded parchment, and a large box, lined in silvery pewter-colored velvet. She set the four items out on Harry's bed. "Can you pass me the Sneakoscope?" she asked, and Harry handed her the glass sphere that had squealed earlier. She examined it. "This isn't a Sneakoscope. Where's your Sneakoscope—you know, the one Ron gave you?"

"Well, if that's not my Sneakoscope, then what is it?"

"It's one of the new _Remembralls_, Harry. I gave it to you for your birthday, don't you remember?" Admittedly, Harry didn't: years of Hermione's reminder-gifts had run together so thoroughly that he couldn't distinguish one from another, and was quite honestly surprised that this one had managed to worm its way in with his school things as he peered at the tiny illuminated _R _etched into the glass that Hermione was indicating with her thumbnail. "Sneakoscopes turn _green. _Here, let me show you. _Accio Sneakoscope!_" Another hollow glass ball shot towards Hermione and then stopped, quivering in midair beside her. She absently plucked it from its position, then held it over each of the objects in turn. No green light came forth, and Hermione harrumphed resentfully. "Distinctly peculiar," she muttered.

"Which d'ye wanna open first?" Ron asked.

Harry didn't have a particular desire to open any of them, since the entire business seemed like a awful parody of Boxing Day, but of the four, Dumbledore's letter was the most appealing. Wordlessly, he reached out and, hands trembling, picked up the small envelope. It was addressed, somewhat hurriedly, to "_Harry_ _Potter and friends, in the event of my decease_." Harry ran his fingers beneath the wax seal of the envelope, and opened it. It fell forgotten to the flagstones as he pulled out the folded parchment of the letter.

"_May 31, 1997._

_Harry (and Hermione and Ron, of course),_

_If you are reading this, the events of this evening probably did not bode as well for me as I had hoped. You have probably, by now, found and removed something of Rowena Ravenclaw's that has served as a Horcrux, and are at a loss as to how to destroy it. The solution lies buried with A.I. Vance. The items enclosed should help you to find A.I. Vance, in the last known location occupied. Pay particular attention to the contents of Professor Snape's desk, which are enclosed in the envelope. (The contents of the box belonged to Severus as a younger man.) _

_Fondly,_

_Albus Dumbledore_

_One post-script: Do not permit Gideon Habeas to browbeat you into signing further documents that you have not read. I myself once initialed fifty pages before I realized that I was authorizing a caveat that gave him exclusive custody of my toenail clippings. Should you ever have problems understanding a document, fire-call William Blackstone, as I have taken the liberty of retaining him as your personal counsel."_

Harry tapped the top of the parchment. "May 31st—that was the night we went after the..." He reached absently into his pocket and gripped the false Horcrux.

Hermione picked up the larger envelope. "It said pay particular attention to the contents of Professor Snape's desk," she suggested timidly, weighing the envelope heavily in her hands. "Perhaps you should look at them."

Harry reached out to the envelope, broke the seal, and opened it. He reached inside, and felt several worn parchments, interspersed with a few magazine clippings. Feeling nothing breakable, he upended the envelope on his bed. "Looks like he cleaned out before he skived off," Harry commented, dividing the fragments of parchment into three piles. "Right. Everyone take a stack and look through it."

"Do I have to?" Ron whined, but before he could whine further, he was drowned out by a resounding and irritated retort of "_Yes_," from both Harry and Hermione. Grumbling, he set about going through the parchments.

"Slug and Jiggers receipt...Slug and Jiggers receipt..._honestly, _if I see one more invoice for toad bowels I'll go absolutely spare," Ron groused to himself. "Staff memo...page out of his ledger... Bloody hell, I'd be a disagreeable git too if my life was this boring. You'd think being one of the Dark Lord's minions would be more action and less paperwork." The redhead picked up a page and began to read it in an exaggerated false voice. "Dear Diary; today I was a greasy slimeball git. Went to class and tried to figure out how I could crawl further up Malfoy's..."

"Look at this—he had a _girl_'s picture with his things," Harry interrupted Ron as he showed the two of them a wizarding photograph, obviously yellowed with age, of an Asian girl in faded Muggle jeans and a red satin Oriental blouse with a high-buttoned neck. The girl was giggling and laughing, and occasionally paused to blow a kiss at the photographer. "Hang on...it's got writing all over the back side of it, but I can't read it, it looks like...Japanese." Harry squinted at the back of the photo, as the girl in the photograph, excited at finally receiving some attention, stuck out her tongue cheekily at Ron and Hermione. "Maybe I'll ask Sakura what it means after next class Thursday..."

"Ron, Harry...take a look at this," Hermione said softly. "He's got four clippings from _Advances in Defense Against the Dark Arts_ here..."

"Probably trying to read up on what the other side's doing, the slimeball..." Harry muttered, but Hermione wordlessly turned the parchment around. At the top of the page was a photograph of Sakura Uzume.

"Sakura was a columnist for them?" Harry asked, peering over the top of his glasses.

"She may be in danger..." Hermione supplied. "We should warn her."

"I could ask her what the writing means..." Harry mused.

"Sounds like a brilliant excuse to be out in the hallways. Let's go!" Ron tossed down his pile in a snowstorm of parchments.

"But..." The look on Hermione's face indicated that she was clearly wrestling with an unhealthy bout of respect for authority.

"C'mon, Hermione! You're Head Girl, I'm a Prefect, and Harry's, well, Harry. If that's not enough authority to be out in the halls, what is?" Ron cajoled her.

"Oh...can't we Floo there?"

"Fires go out after classes are over," Harry pointed out.

"Oh...all right...all _right_...But let's take the Invisibility Cloak, to be sure."

* * *

Yes, the interpretive diary reading was a tribute to _Firefly_'s Jayne Cobb. (I went to see _Serenity _Friday night, and it was incredible, although it had the unfortunate side effect of making all my characters sound like space cowboys.)  
While I have your attention, on the other fics-I-read front, if you haven't read Cecelle's _Mist and Vapors_ yet, go read it. The whole thing. _Right_. _Now_. Even before you read my next chapter. Because chapter 43 was just too squeal-worthy for words. 


	5. Of Tea and Translations

Thankfully, the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor's office was not far from Gryffindor tower, so they didn't encounter Mrs. Norris on the way, though they were almost bowled over by a pompous-looking Ernie McMillan, on rounds. Hermione worried the whole way there. "It's terribly late, we're bothering a teacher after 10:00! We're going to get in so much trouble," she muttered, with a panicky tone.

"I don't think she'll mind, Hermione. Really," Harry replied. "She's said to come by and visit loads of times."

"You're Head Girl, after all, you should have your own ruddy office," Ron said.

"Oh, _really_..."

They rounded a corner and suddenly found themselves facing the doorway. As Harry raised his hand tentatively to knock on the enameled wood of the Professor's door, they heard Sakura say, "Enter." The door swung open and they were met by a small floating indoor garden of bamboo, and what Harry thought were small tree figurines, but were actually miniaturized, potted trees in ceramic containers. "Just walk through the plants; they'll move out of your way," said the voice inside smoothly. As Ron, Harry and Hermione approached them, the trees drifted against the walls, and the bamboo stalks parted to admit them into the office of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Sakura's office was a very interesting and splendid space, far different from any of the other Defense Against the Dark Arts professors' offices. Two of the walls were white, and two of them were red, not an ominous bloody vermilion, but a happy scarlet, with ornate brocaded hangings, Oriental ink paintings, several paper fans, and, bolted onto one wall, an ebony rack displaying several long, sharp Japanese samurai swords. Alongside the swords, Harry recognized the staff that Sakura had carried to class. A thin paper screen stood in one corner, and a large bamboo mat sat in front of it, surrounded by soft, fluffy cushions in place of armchairs. A small cauldron bubbled merrily over a fire on a white clay pedestal at the room's center. In an aquarium on the professor's unoccupied desk, something long, thin, and red swam cheerfully among submerged bamboo stalks. Sakura herself looked at ease, lying on her back on a worn, squashy black brocade sofa, with a black quill hovering in midair beside her and a red one in her hand as she pored over some parchments from her first-year classes. Her hair was piled into a messy, low-slung knot at the back of her head, skewered with one of the chopsticks from the opening feast.

"We're not interrupting, are we?" Hermione asked.

"Course not," said Uzume, tossing down the stack of parchments in a pile and poking the quills into porcelain inkbottles. "Just marking first-year papers, essays on 'why is Defense Against the Dark Arts necessary', as if it isn't obvious nowadays. Deathly dull stuff, nothing interesting. What can I help you with?" She popped to her feet brightly, and ushered them into the room, bowing slightly as she did. "Please, please, come in, sit down."

Ron scuttled over to the wall where the swords were bolted. "Wow! These are bloody brilliant! Where d'ye get 'em?"

"Those" Sakura said, inserting herself hastily in front of Ron, "are _kitanas_. They're traditional Japanese swords. Sharp enough to sever bone. Don't _quite _like students playing with them; sorry..." She half-smiled apologetically. "But do take a seat, I'll put some tea on." She disappeared behind the paper screen, and the three of them cautiously sat down around the large bamboo mat, Ron still gazing longingly at the swords. Hermione was gazing at the same wall, but for a different reason entirely.

As Uzume bustled out from behind the screen with a tea tray and replaced the cauldron with a teapot, Hermione tentatively asked, "Profes— Sakura?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you carry that stick?"

Uzume looked pleased. "Don't miss a trick, do you?" she asked, going over to the wall. "This staff was made in the Wazuma Daigaku--it's where I did some additional studies." She extracted the staff from the bolts holding it. "Here... take a closer look. Then maybe you'll see why I carry it," she said, handing it to Hermione. Upon closer inspection, the wooden staff turned out to be more than just black: it was inlaid with fine bits of brilliant white and red behind what appeared to be a less-than-paper-thin layer of heavily smoked gray glass.

"The wood looks like..." Hermione tapped it with her fingers "ebony?"

"Correct," Sakura confirmed. "Soaked in a solution of dragon's blood for 6 months. Now try the red and white bits."

"The white is powdered unicorn hair, I'm sure of it," Hermione mused, tilting the staff. Seeing Sakura's nod of assent, she continued. "Some of the red looks like... phoenix feather..."

"Some of it is...but some of it isn't. Look closer."

Hermione squinted. "Are those...dragon scales?"

"Good job. From an Ishiguro Red, to be precise," the professor asserted. "Ishiguro Reds are indigenous to a few specific mountain regions in Japan; they're an interestingly quirky variety of dragon. They start as water-bound creatures, like Sensei;" she indicated the red--Harry assumed it was a dragon-- undulating in the aquarium on her desk.

"That's not a Chinese fireball, is it?" Ron asked. Harry thought he seemed slightly determined to impress the Professor; Hermione didn't seem to care.

"Well, they're _related_ to what you call Chinese fireballs, but not quite so large," Sakura explained. "Sensei, here, is about 40 years old, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Reds stay that size for nearly fifty years. Later, when they become airborne, for a time they're quite docile and affectionate, as dragons go." Harry noticed a Japanese ink painting of small children with what on closer inspection proved to be minute crimson dragons perching like parrots on their shoulders. "At full maturity, however, they're extremely defensive and have been known to protect individual villages for hundreds of years. They're incredibly rare; not many people have ever seen them, and they live for millennia so the blood and scales are very hard to come by indeed. It doesn't help, either, that people are constantly grinding up their eggs for potion ingredients."

"So basically, it's a really enormous wand?" Ron asked. "How is that useful? Did you buy it? I bet it cost a thousand Galleons."

"Not exactly a wand, per se; though it is capable of a few rudimentary spells. But I didn't pay for it, because, you see, I made it." Sakura indicated the inlays. "A magical object like this one can't be bought. That's part of the enchantment of it: the hard work of its maker. If anyone else were to use it, it wouldn't work nearly as well. But magical substances and hard work alone aren't enough to make this more useful than any other magical device. Think further, Ron. Why would something I went to all the trouble of making colorful end up so charred?" Harry was thinking to himself that he'd seen something blackened like this once before... suddenly it occurred to him: Dumbledore's hand.

"Has it been cursed?" Harry asked.

"Well done, Harry. It has indeed been struck with many curses, but it's been protected by a complex series of preventative incantations." She gently took the staff from Hermione. "A demonstration. Fire off a spell at me, go on..." Sakura shook a hand at them encouragingly. Harry had never been encouraged to hex a teacher before; he wasn't quite sure he could do it. He cast a weak Bat-Bogey Hex at her, and she, seeing the bolt of orange light that accompanied it, tilted the staff, which absorbed the bolt with a shudder and a puff of thin gray smoke.

"It's hex-proof?" Hermione exclaimed, delightedly.

"Hex, jinx, and curse-proof for the most part. It won't completely block the Unforgivables, or any of the -sempra spells," Uzume cast a look at Harry, and it occurred to him that maybe she'd heard of his exploits against Malfoy last year in the bathroom. "But it can diminish their effects; with the exception of the Killing Curse." She ran a finger along its surface. "It's not perfect, but it's saved my life, many times over."

"Why don't people make suits of armor of these things, then?" Hermione interrupted. "If it's so protective."

"A variety of reasons, chief among them mobility and stamina. A wooden suit wouldn't permit a wizard much space to move his arms and legs, to outrun an opponent, and the protective incantation is enormously complex. Written down, it fills a 300-page book, and it takes three consecutive, uninterrupted days and nights of nothing but solid spell work and concentration to cast." Sakura bustled over to the tea cauldron, which had just whistled, and poured them four cups of greenish tea; which she balanced skillfully as she returned to them. "But the primary reason is effort. Most wizards and witches don't have time to take a year out of their lives to make a single stave; much less a full suit of protective armor." In a single fluid motion, she bent her knees and ankles, knelt on the floor, set down the tray, and pushed it forward to them, bowing her head slightly. "But somehow, I don't think a discussion of Wazuma weaponry was what you had in mind when you came."

Harry hesitantly reached into his robes, then decided that Sakura was trustworthy enough for a translation. He extracted the photograph, facedown, from his sleeve and showed her the back of it. "What sort of characters are these?"

Uzume's thin black eyebrows raised slightly, and she squinted at the spiky characters, then drew her wand, tapped it once, and murmured, "_Traduzco!_"

The lines in the characters lifted off the paper and began rearranging themselves, settling back down to read in a very spiky handwriting,

"_So, my dear Snake, _

"_Have I told you recently that I hate you, and that I think you should die at your earliest convenience? (Well, no, not really. I actually mean the opposite. So there.)Hopefully you won't forget my name over the summer._

"_Yours,_

"_Kiko."_

The Japanese witch gave a slight smile. "I take it you weren't out after hours to ask me about something you found in an old textbook?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "May I?" She turned the photograph over and studied it, squinting again, then produced a pair of spectacles and perched them on her stubby nose, where they looked extremely like a large dragonfly that was preparing to dive at any moment. "She's very familiar... I can't place the name... How did you get this?"

"Well..." Harry stopped, and then he and Hermione in turn explained everything that had happened with Dumbledore's letter,

Uzume removed her glasses. "A.I. Vance..." she said, blowing out a long, sighing breath. "Yes, now that you mention it, that is her... I haven't heard that name in seventeen years. Very friendly, intellectually, just above average; brilliant Quidditch player...very sweet girl, that one."

"A.I. Vance...was a _girl_?" Ron asked, dumbfounded.

"Akiko Irene Vance, that's the only A.I. Vance I know of," Sakura replied as she extracted her wand from her sleeve, and flicked it behind her. A drawer in her desk yanked itself open, and a photo album came floating toward them, which she snagged from the air. Flipping through it, she added in a sporadic tumble of words, "Rather sad story, really...her parents were murdered by Yakuza—those'd be Muggles—when she was two. Dumbledore himself traveled to Japan and brought her here. When I came to Britain after _juku_, Dumbledore introduced us. We were something like...second or third cousins by blood, no significant relation, but all the same, it was comforting for both of us. " She pulled a faded photo of a Quidditch team from its backing and set it in front of Harry and Hermione, indicating a smiling girl on the front row, who looked to be about 14 years of age and had a complicated tangle of various braids, stitched throughout with bright blue and bronze ribbons. "She was raised by a close friend of Dumbledore's, a witch called Emmeline Vance. Got on famously with your father and his friends," Uzume recalled as she continued to flip through the photo album.

"You knew my parents?"

Sakura looked at Harry over the top of the photo album. "Lily Evans was one of my best friends; of course I knew your parents. Your dad thought of Akiko Vance as something like a little sister." She paused at a photograph, peered down at it, and then continued to turn pages. "Her boyfriend lived in the flat next door to mine, in Diagon Alley; at the time he was working for Slug and Jiggers," she said, shaking her head. "Never would have pegged that one for a Death Eater."

"Whom?"

"Severus Snape."

The force of this hit Harry like a slap in the face. It seemed utterly impossible to imagine Snape as anyone's "boyfriend," much less someone his father considered a little sister. "Of course; that's why he pulled those pages out of _Advances in Defense Against the Dark Arts,_" Hermione declared matter-of-factly. "He _knows_ you."

"Was Severus saving my columns? How splendid of him," Sakura commented airily. Ron was clearly dumbstruck by this as well, and after a moment, the redhead spluttered, "Are you daft? How could you not have pegged Snape as a Death Eater? The man's sneaky; he's obsessed with the Dark Arts! You'd just have to take a shufti at him to know he's a right black-hearted old..."

"_Ron_," Hermione cut him off, pleadingly, and the redhead grumbled into silence.

Sakura seemed nonchalantly determined not to notice Ron's outburst. "At the time, he wasn't obsessed with the Dark Arts...he had been at one time, and he knew a terrific amount about them, but only in a morbidly fascinated academic sense. No, the Severus Snape I knew in Diagon Alley was young, lovestruck, and impetuous..." Harry tried to imagine Snape loving anything, and failed miserably. Uzume noticed the look on his face, faltered, but continued. "He was absolutely taken with Kiko. Would've done anything to make her happy. One always got the distinct impression that she had a bit more control over things than he did, but he didn't seem to mind." She paused, and offered more tea, before she continued. "Well, this was around the time things started to really heat up with You-Know-Who and the pure-blood obsession was raving along at full speed. Britain was getting to be a lousy place to live, absolutely impossible to go anywhere without seeing a brawl based on blood break out. Around that time, I'd just got an offer for graduate study at Wazuma Daigakuin Daigaku, in Hokkaido, so I decided to take them up on it. Shortly before I left, Severus told me he was going to ask" she paused for only the briefest of split seconds "Akiko to marry him. I was gone for a week to get things in Japan all set up so that I could bring my things over; I came back to find out that Akiko had disappeared without a trace, and Snape had disappeared." She sipped her tea bitterly. "The general consensus among the gossips was that he killed her, but charges were never brought against him because a corpse was never found. So it was a bit of a shock for all of us." She shook her head. "Damn shame, too. He was brilliant. Invented new spells and potions all the time."

"Did anyone search among Inferi to find her body?" Harry asked.

Uzume sputtered a bit on a hot mouthful of tea, and then swallowed, thickly, and wiped her lips on her sleeve. "At the time, You-Know-Who hadn't quite begun amassing an army of Inferi just yet. He had a few well-placed ones, but he made them all himself, and they were still in the experimental phases. In any case, he wouldn't have trusted a newly-minted Death Eater to create one on his initiation trial."

"Initiation trial?" Hermione asked, incredulously.

"Every new Death Eater the Darkest One brands has to go through a trial to prove their devotion to the cause before becoming a full Death Eater," Uzume explained serenely. "Typically, he sends a new follower out to kill someone; in most cases, he sends them to kill the person that they loved most: a husband or wife, a significant other, a family member, a friend, a respected teacher, anyone along those lines. The only way they could get out of it would be to convert their victim to the cause."

"What happens if they don't do either one?"

"He hunts them down and kills them personally," Uzume replied. "Two things the Darkest One won't stand for among his followers are failure and disloyalty. No, Severus Snape wouldn't have been trusted with a job as important as the murder of Albus Dumbledore if he'd failed on his first job." She paused, then added as an afterthought, "Besides, he has a phobia of Inferi, he finds them extraordinarily unnatural."

"Really?" Hermione asked. Harry shared her disbelief: it was a bit difficult to think that Professor Snape might be afraid of anything.

"Indeed. He has this great, dark, moody belief in the sanctity of death; he believes that once you die, you're dead, and that's it; end of story. His true deepest fear is not dying, but being made an Inferius. Then again, seeing that happen to one's father will do that to you, I suppose." The clock chimed 11:30 pm, and Sakura started. "Oh dear, I've kept you late. Well, off to bed with the three of you."


End file.
